#one of more analyses to come!

[seiwas]

thinking about katsuki finding out about that little crush you had on shouto since seeing close-ups of him during the televised sports festival—you were in high school then, too.

he shouldn’t care about it because it doesn’t matter, it was so long ago and shouto’s always been marketed as the pro-hero pretty boy—consistently top 3 most handsome, the front cover of magazines, all that.

this is to be expected, it’s what everyone’s been tempted to react like.

but since finding out, he’s been stewing in… in whatever this bubbling, throbbing feeling in his head means. he’s snappier than normal, face scrunched up more than usual.

and every time he sees shouto he wants to strangle the hell out of him.

[madbard]

While listening to Epic, I noticed an interesting pattern with how antagonists are portrayed, and how Odysseus’ interactions with them are coded.

In Epic, the monsters Odysseus faces are rarely fighting for their own sake. Polyphemus attacks Odysseus’ crew to avenge his sheep, and Poseidon destroys his ships as revenge for his son’s suffering. Similarly, Circe only threatens Odysseus to protect her nymphs. Odysseus does not kill any of these enemies, and while he is occasionally criticized for letting them go free, the overall implication is that he did the right thing by sparing them.

Then we hit the Thunder Saga, and Odysseus begins his arc as a ‘monster’ by killing the sirens. His actions here are brutal, and whether or not they are justified is, I think, up to the listener. However, it’s significant that the sirens are the first foes Odysseus faces on his journey who aren’t either defending or avenging what they love. They attack unprovoked, and while Odysseus’ method of execution is gory, he is never punished for it by other characters within the narrative. Apollo is the only one to protest, and even he is swayed easily when Athena says (among other things) that the sirens were “trying to do him worse.” The sirens attacked first, and while Odysseus’ response was ‘monstrous,’ his crew obeyed his commands and he was not challenged or ostracized for giving said commands. He is only treated as a monster when he yields to Scylla, who also attacked without provocation.

Thus, in Epic, the monsters fighting to protect or avenge their loved ones are protected by the very story - killing them may be more convenient, but it isn’t the answer. However, the monsters who attack without provocation, for their own amusement or satisfaction, do not receive such respect. Killing them is acceptable, and cooperating with them is monstrous.

By this logic, Odysseus is justified in his actions, however atrocious. He attacks to protect his family, and therefore deserves mercy.

The suitors, on the other hand…

[molinaskies]

Lanolin: Designed to be Dislikable.

Hi friends. I’ve had a number of people in my digital face over the last few months trying to “show me the light of Lanolin,” but I’ve kept these interactions private because there’s no need to put them on blast. Of course, they're mostly respectful and I’m often reminded that I have a right to my opinion, but there is always an undercurrent that I might have just missed this one small tidbit that could blow the case wide open because how could I possibly not like her? How could I not understand her character and be empathetic to her plight?

But I’ve watched the videos. I’ve read the think pieces. I’ve seen it all. But my opinion hasn’t changed and that does not mean I’m wrong… nor does it mean I’m right! We have two different opinions that should be allowed to co-exist.

I’m being a touch cross here, I recognize. Please forgive me for that, this once. But frankly, I am frustrated—not because people like Lanolin, but because many seem incredulous to the fact that I dislike her. And I can only assume that means I simply have not made myself clear.

Consider this my final take on Lanolin the Sheep until there is some significant development for this character.

I am allowed to dislike Lanolin because she is a fictional character whom I’ve done the research on and have come to that conclusion. Done. That’s all she wrote. Go home.

That aside entirely for the sake of argument, I am allowed to dislike Lanolin because she is supposed to be unlikeable as per her role in this story. I dislike Lanolin because I dislike assholes, but I also like Lanolin because she is doing her job very fucking well! lol

Lanolin is not supposed to be in the right. She is a character who is making major mistakes due to her lack of experience combined with her arrogant dismissal of others, and she will eventually be punished by Mimic’s betrayal to teach the audience some sort of lesson. If half of this comic’s runtime has been about punishing Sonic—the titular character—for his mistakes, then Lanolin can get punished once. I would bet real world money that this will happen.

So many characters are sus of Duo by now and have tried to do something about it but Lanolin gets in the way because she can’t listen to reason. The only reason Silver and Whisper “go rogue” is because Lanolin wouldn’t listen to reason—and her response was still disproportionate because when Whisper tried again to explain herself, Lanolin made her hit the deck.

Lanolin is Sonic with some pieces missing. We know this because Lanolin directly cites Sonic as her inspiration for getting involved in the restoration. However, Lanolin looks at Sonic, sees his behaviour, and emulates it without any understanding or regard for how he has earned the right to do what he does. Sonic is insolent, not arrogant, because he only denies authority when it isn’t earned. Sonic is defiant, not self-righteous, because he believes there are multiple ways to solve a problem. Sonic is empathetic, not sympathetic, because he takes the time to learn and experience what it means to live on the other side. Lanolin has modelled herself off of Sonic because Sonic is a hero, but she’s missed the bigger picture of what that actually means.

Lanolin is cold, unkind, and unwilling to be wrong because she thinks she knows everything she needs to be in this game. That is inherently unlikable to some people and therefore justified.

But there’s more to this, isn’t there?

A huge defence of Lanolin as a character is that “she has baggage that makes her rough around the edges,” and you know what? Fair! You would not believe how empathetic I am to that, trust me. Imma get into it. But the reality of the case is that Lanolin is her own keeper, and if Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, the Chaotix, Tangle, Whisper, Silver, Blaze, Jewel, Belle, and many others can carry their baggage around and still treat others with respect and without verbal and physical abuse, then there’s no excuse. Yes, it takes time to get there, and the whole point of Lanolin as a character is that she hasn’t learned the “everyone is useful just the way they are” and “a leader is nothing without her team” lessons, yet.

But allowing Lanolin to lash out at the world only to let her hide behind her trauma is a deeply reductive portrayal of trauma survivors that I find aggressively problematic. Further, it is a failure to Lanolin as a character because, again, that is not the fucking point of her.

This is the one time I will ever ask anyone here to just “take my word” for something. I’m not comfortable airing out too much of my personal issues on the internet. But below is what I can share.

I come from a very, very broken home that instilled a lot of unproductive defence mechanisms within me. In short, I used to be very mean because I was neglected, and acting out against my peers and showing off my skills gave me attention.

The big ticket, though, is I thought I was good. I thought I was Great. Awesome. Outstanding. AMAZING. I was a natural-born leader with a drive for justice who was good at a couple things. I thought I was doing everything right because teachers liked me and I was getting opportunities. What I never saw—never could have possibly seen until it was spit right in my face—was how I was treating everyone around me as beneath me because I thought I had it in the bag.

It wasn’t until I learned about a very public smear campaign against me that I got a wake up call. When I saw what people were saying, it shattered my entire paradigm not because of just how heinous it was, but because of how much of it was true—and that broke my heart. All I have ever wanted to do was help people. Fight for people. Protect people. Elevate people. Support people. For me to learn I was doing the exact opposite of what I set out to do absolutely destroyed me.

After that, I immediately switched up my game. I pulled out all the stops and really focused on being kinder, empathetic, and encouraging. I started to become more self-aware and mindful of how my emotions and behaviour impacted others, but it still took years to even start to comprehend that I was traumatized, let alone the ways my trauma impacted my relationships and behaviour.

I used to be Lanolin. I was a mean girl getting progressively meaner from ages 11-17, and I am still in active recovery. I still make mistakes. I still fall from grace occasionally, but I am working on it. I’m almost 24 now.

Remember when this used to be about a cartoon sheep? Back on track LOL.

I promise you that while Lanolin has some moments of clarity, she is not largely aware of what she’s doing. She’s not evil. She is not unworthy of love. She just needs time for the story to let her learn.

I am not saying Lanolin does not deserve a redemption. What I am saying is that down her current path and with her current behaviour, she has not yet earned one. And here’s the thing: even though what I’m about to say probably will not happen because this is a kids comic directed at 12 year olds, just because Lanolin might eventually get her punishment, see the light, and apologize for her wrongs while acting on solutions, no one she hurt owes her forgiveness. Whisper can still tell her to fuck off. Silver can send her to outer space, Sonic 06-style. Tangle can yeet her back to kingdom-wherever the fuck she-come from (hush, I know it’s Riverside). 

Why? Because the reality is that even if you are a changed person and have learned and grown from your past discretions, you still hurt people. Even if they do forgive you, they may never trust, and they will never forget. That is the reality I and many others like me live in daily, and to be frank: I think it’s entirely fair. I made mistakes, and I gotta pay the consequences. I deserve grace and patience, but that can only go so far. The people around me are human the exact same way I am.

I personally believe that I have never misunderstood Lanolin as a character. She’s snarky and inexperienced and abrasive entirely by design. She is meant to showcase the “wrong” ways to be a hero and will be corrected. But just because she is a rough-and-tumble person who had a bad day at work does not mean she can come home and treat the world as her personal shitter. No one has that right.

And if you disagree with me, good! Welcome to MolinaSkies.

[onehundredfallenpetals]

A change of trains, an unexpected companion on the way home

[scruncheduppaper]

seeing ppl on twitter’s takes about snowgrave kriselle makes me want to kill myself oh my godddd “its toxic” “regular kriselle better bc its healthier” DO YOU THINK I WANT TO SEE THEM MUSHY KISS AND BE LOVEY DOVEY AND HUG EACH OTHER??? NO!!! the APPEAL is that adding romantic connotations to their snowgrave relationship (which mind you very much already exists in canon) allow their relationship to become so much more interesting. do i think they’ll become truly endgame canon? do i think they’re in love with each other??? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! AND I DONT WANT THEM TO!!! the POINT is that it’s supposed to be dark and interesting and exploratory of their characters in relation to the deconstruction of autonomy in video games through gender roles and principles of knighthood and the idea of the “damsel in distress”. not to mention that “shipping” regular kriselle and snowgrave kriselle isnt mutually exclusive either. in fact i think understanding both allows you to analyse their relationship much more fully and deeply than without considering the other side. and besides, isnt the fucking point of shipping to explore character relationships??? why would you want to Ignore nuance and depth rather than focus on it???? are you unable to handle anything deeper or darker than like fucking cocomelon??? if you hate character analysis and dark themes in relationships you can head on back there or smth idfk oh my lord i cant fucking TAKE IT ANYMORE

[mxtxfanatic]

Just for the record, I actually don’t hate any mdzs character. Mxtx’s stories are so well-crafted that I love the roles that every character plays. I love the chills and digust that Jin Guangyao inspires in me. I loved the hatred that Xue Yang causes to flare up in me when I reread the Yi City arc. I love the amusement I get every time Jiang Cheng lives up to his failed-hero role, doubly so when I remember that he is also a failed-villain because Xue Yang is actually the better version of him lmao. I love dissecting Nie Mingjue’s hypocrisy in what it means when Wei Wuxian thinks of him as an “upholder of morality.” I love the pity that I feel for Lan Xichen such that I struggle to commit to how I view him just like how he struggles with how to view those he loves. And the complexity and diversity of each character’s life experiences and autonomous choices is the icing on the cake that makes fans’ (me included) obsessions over them wholly understandable.

What I hate is feeling coerced into liking a character how fandom wants me to like them, especially if the “evidence” supporting liking said character is just popular fanon that the fandom has taken as gospel truth. The more I feel pressured into ignoring a character’s canon personality to adopt a fanfic version of them whose only similarity is that they share a name, the harsher I want to be with my critique of them. Don’t give me morally righteous!Nie Mingjue who totally would’ve defended the Wen and I won’t give you hypocrite!Nie Mingjue who deserved to be cut into pieces, just not by the person who did it. Don’t give me best brother, best jiujiu!Jiang Cheng and I won’t give you pathetic manbaby!Jiang Cheng who deserved to have Wei Wuxian’s golden core removed from him the hard way for his ungratefulness and for his sister to come back to life to bitch slap him for how he treats her son. Don’t give me best bro wangxian shipper!Lan Xichen and I won’t give you morally weak!Lan Xichen who deserved every bit of the psychological torture Nie Huaisang put him through for his inability to truly stand by any of his brothers, biological or sworn.

Don’t give me some “everyone is secretly good with no flaws” bullshit and I won’t feel the need to balance it out by listing every single one of their sins and nailing it to the door like Martin Luther. I like these characters. Don’t turn me into a hater, cause if you think I’m mean now? Lol

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

…What’s this?? WWX not being a self-sacrificial idiot??

It’s almost like… that isn’t a personality trait…

[i-like-forcefem]

Hi! I just wanted to know if you'd ever heard of a really fun forcefem game called Crossdressing in Camelot? It's a really well-made one that definitely put some work into cracking my own egg. You play as a "man" who discovers that they have a talent for magic, but oops! the best way to grow stronger magically is to be more feminine! It has some really well-written characters, some fun dialogue and plot, and is free on itch.io!

Never heard of it before and gave it a shot!

It’s quite fun! Though sadly moved a bit too slowly for me personally, I can definitely see the appeal!

It was fun to give it a shot! Please tell me if anyone has more forcefem recommendations!

[irellia]

are people aware of the fact that Mizu is not canonically in any way shape or form.............. queer....bi.....

(quick note here because reading comprehension stays dead and people may not read the tag novel: I want bi Mizu! I hc her as sapphic! I love sapphic Mizu)

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

Hey did I ever tell y'all about the time I dreamed that I had a baby daughter called Ellie that began with my finding out I was pregnant and ended on like her third birthday?

I legitimately woke up thinking "I should go check on Ellie" and then realised she was never real and when I tell you I SOBBED. I've been haunted by an implacable sense of loss ever since. Did I travel to another dimension? Wtf happened because that was insane.

[youmakethelight]

Okay, but I'm casting my mind back to try to imagine how I would have felt about tboc daryl before season 10 got me so stupid about this show, when I used to be a casual viewer. And I still think I'd have just thought daryl lost his mind tbh.

This is just me going off on tangents about the show now, don't mind me.

He felt a bit off in season 1, I can't lie. The costume change would have thrown me even if I wasn't as attached, because I'm probs just the type of neurodivergent that struggles with too much change at once, and him being away from TF, in Europe, and looking so different, then calling Laurent useless, then the ways he looked at Isabelle at the end of 1x06 - that was all just too different to the Daryl I knew idk. But I stuck with it.

But having his first on-screen kiss be so entirely unpredictable for what I thought I knew of his character felt gratuitous*. And then it's like suddenly I'm being railroaded into following him on this rolleroaster that I don't understand. One minute he's longing for home, the next he's playing baseball and "just having fun". Then home has found him, but now he's invested in this kid I still haven't learnt to feel invested in yet. And he's never even talking about anything to do with home anymore, even after Carol is there? It's suddenly all just about Laurent, and part of the problem for me is there wasn't enough balance to convince me of the story.

And I think this was most of my difficulty with enjoying TOWL, too. (Don't come for me please for talking about my personal experience of watching TOWL.) I watched TOWL first out of all the spinoffs, and I remember this one part where I think Michonne and Rick were in a kitchen or something and Rick felt so different to me and it made me sad, and then she called it out. And he said something like that it's been so long, he's lost who he used to be or something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it made me sad. And I think, for me, I didn't get enough glimpses of the Rick I recognised within the short 6 episodes that I never felt satisfied or happy with it. And maybe I needed more TF references or something??? I didn't even feel enough concern for Judith or RJ from him - maybe I'm misremembering, but I think your memory of the feeling something gave you is important. I get that the leadership want these spinoffs to be accessible to people who didn't watch the flagship show, but I think that's a big part of where it's losing the magic for me.

The thing that was better for me about DD season 1 is that it was all about getting home, and his determination felt relentless throughout the first 5 and a half episodes before it suddenly got weird with Isabelle acting like they've been a family for 19 years. Like, before that, I felt connected to his mission.** But then in season 2, it's almost completely gone, and Carol feels like the only part I can still connect with. Like, I know Rick didn't mention Daryl either I think, but I wish both of them had talked about each other. Idk, it just would have felt more like it's giving me something I can connect with? Rather than just throwing the characters into entirely new situations and also deliberately making them feel a bit out of character?

That whole part in TOWL where Michonne feels surprised to find Rick a bit changed is so similar to what they seemed to want to do with Daryl and Carol, and I don't really get why they did it to either of them. It's more believable with Rick than Daryl bc 1. He isn't Daryl and definitely adapts more to new environments, and 2. It had been many, many, many years, not like a month. But idk, I still wasn't keen, but at least they gave it a redemption arc or whatever you'd call it. With daryl it's still just like - ???? And for what reason??? I don't know. I just don't find it compelling idk idk idk.

*Even in season 9, when we met Connie, I felt a bit like 'oh are they gonna force a ship here bc they have them spending time together 🤨 (rather than just letting connie want to help for her own character reasons rather than making it about daryl and shipping), but if it's gonna be someone who isn't carol, I think I'm okay with connie', like bc we actually had reasons to like her and there was chemistry with Daryl. So why neither Connie nor Carol, but Isabelle? The show just never got me invested in darabelle in any way.

I already liked connie before they had her going on missions with daryl, so I actually cared about her a lot. I loved seeing her on those missions bc I was excited for her to have more screen time and I found her character empowering. So, I didn't want to see her reduced to just being Daryl's love interest, and tbh, I don't think they handled it well, bc they still reduced her to being Daryl's accessory, rather than giving her her own character depth. But I *still* would have been more on board with pairing up Daryl with Connie than Isabelle. Tbh, by the time that Carol was broken up with zeke, and they had the conversation about running away together, I didn't think of Daryl and Connie as making sense to pair anymore... But I also didn't see much point in the Leah romance either, so whatever, I guess this show just has a pattern of pairing up Daryl with random women he doesn't have chemistry with, instead of the ones he does?

**I always remember that Zabel pitched the idea for the show as "what if, in trying to get home, you find something else?", and the thing is, in order to get me to be convinced that Daryl "found something else", I'd have needed A LOT stronger of a pull for the French story. There was nothing there that hooked me to becoming convinced of Daryl finding something while trying to get home. Just having him voice the words "I found something", having Laurent the prophet say "you miss her too, I can tell", putting his crossbow next to Isabelle's hospital bed, and having him look at her for an extended time after she recovers, doesn't suddenly convince me of that idea. Idk. I'm not in the TV industry, so I don't know how that magic gets done - like when season 10 slowly turned Lydia into one of my favourite characters after she was introduced as an antagonist. But I have enough brain cells to see (from the moment they nonsensically forced them to share a bed??) that they were trying to convince us Daryl found "something" in France, and tbh, if I can see the strain in their efforts to make it happen, it's probably not working. And even NR couldn't answer why Isabelle when asked at NYCC. He was literally like, "idk they have similar pasts?? Idk???". Like, girl, if you don't know, why should your audience?

[itsalwaysforyou]

jay not asking coach about letting lonnie onto the team bc he doesn’t want to do anything coach might disagree with…….

[esteemed-excellency]

ok i'm almost done with the new firmament chapter, i have So Many thoughts 👀

[batsplat]

reading your post about vale and marc mind games bc it came up on my dash and thinking about your point about how athletes like vale must convince themselves of certain things but also know the truth. and i guess with vale’s insistence that marc was never a fan of his, that he tricked him, that everything was a lie, when there are videos from marc at age seven naming vale as his hero, videos from him at age nineteen talking about collecting vale’s bikes, etc, things that would appear as “proof” i wonder if there’s some difference between what vale has convinced himself of and the (apparent) reality/truth that exists. obviously there is no way of knowing and it’s imo harder to figure out the “truth” of an emotional and personal situation that both parties were deeply hurt by than a sporting one. but it’s interesting because in 2015 the personal and sport elements were intertwined too

(x) hm yeah, I love the subjectivity of the whole thing, how it's all founded so much around these 'emotional' truths... there's this kind of fun tension where in late 2015/early 2016 both 'sides' are attempting to prove they're right with data, hrc is promising press conferences to present conclusive evidence, everyone's waving around sheets of paper with telemetry and obsessing around helicopter shots... but you won't actually be able to prove anything one way or the other, because this isn't something that can actually be 'proven'. this is about minds and it's about hearts - you can't find conclusive evidence for what's in either of them. that doesn't mean studying the events is pointless... but it can only ever tell you so much. valentino's initial allegation was couched in the language of facts, he wanted his audience to believe that you could read marc's intentions in a few numbers. but even if marc had wanted to sabotage him, you never would have found that in those numbers... and at the end of the day, valentino was using those numbers to tell a much bigger story

this is the difference to, say, qatar 2004, right? because if you're concerning yourself with what 'really' happened at qatar, then you can find a 'truth' of sorts - it should be possible in theory to know whether sete gibernau was involved in valentino's penalty or not. how that penalty came to exist is knowable. you can still do with this information what you want, argue about what sete was attempting to achieve with his actions, argue about what valentino knew or did not know and what he chose to do with that information - but the central 'conspiracy' is one that is based on real events. what marc wanted of valentino that year, the full spectrum of possibilities from completely innocuous to ragingly malicious, is not knowable in a similar way. even marc and valentino themselves won't completely understand their own intentions that year... nobody is knowable even to themselves, right? they've narrativised this to death and back in their own heads, including what happened in the races themselves... marc and valentino both going over the events again and again, in argentina, in assen, in phillip island, in sepang, in valencia... thinking about what they did, what the other did - the level of reflection that can obscure as much as it reveals. even isolated racing events that should be relatively straightforward are still essentially ambiguous, and continue to be enthusiastically debated to this day. the protagonists hold diametrically opposed views, and even there we can only guess at what they really believe

I'll include the autobiography bit again because it really is a bit of a banger

obviously, the context itself is a different one (and if you want to read more about 2003-05 then. well here you go). but it's such a good description... especially this bit

But then again, we riders always say all sorts of things. Sometimes we believe what we say, even when it sounds crazy, other times we’re just being hopeful and, still at other times, it’s all an exercise in self-delusion. We try to convince ourselves of something, because ultimately, every time you step on the track, words don’t matter, and it’s just you, the bike and your opponents.

"at other times, it's all an exercise in self-delusion". you don't say! "we try to convince ourselves of something"... valentino does have a reasonable understanding of his own working process, I think. it's very true what you say about the intertwining of the personal and the sporting processes, and this post contains some speculation about how valentino may have also changed in how he approached interpersonal relationships to his rivals over time. if you buy into this theory, you have a shift to the purely 'professional' rivalries with casey and jorge, where he was fairly conscious and deliberate in manipulating both that dynamic and how he felt within that dynamic. giving himself a target was all well and good, but it's all part of the game, all about attempting to get a competitive edge over his new challengers... it took a bit of a perfect storm for that friendship with marc to even be possible in the first place. maybe marc and valentino would have always ended up enemies - but not in every universe do they start out as friends

of course, the main story valentino ended up telling himself was that marc was out to destroy him. now, this is very much the topic for another post, but it is broadly reasonable to argue that marc approached his rivalry with valentino differently than he did any of his others. it's also not stretching things too far to suggest that marc was perhaps a little more focused on valentino than was competitively reasonable, that he seemed to take defeats to valentino particularly poorly... further into grey areas, was marc deliberately messing with valentino specifically? did he want to beat valentino at all costs, knowing he was pushing things, knowing it might cost valentino the title? where we get into even murkier territory is the question of what marc's preferred outcome for the title that year was, and whether he was really as disinterested as he said he was. it is just around up until this area where you can still more or less get to in a reasonable way, without too much delusion required - where the theory jumps off the cliff edge is by proposing that marc was deliberately orchestrating the phillip island race in order to hand jorge the title. that bit does not work. in a way, though, it's just the conspiratorial scaffolding for an emotional truth. this 'truth' that valentino felt very strongly is that marc had it out for him. once he was convinced of that, he basically just... arranged the facts to suit this narrative, but really the phillip island thing was a lot about having something a bit more 'solid' to grasp onto. it is where he makes the leap from 'malice' to 'conspiracy'. then, he blows shit up at sepang, and obviously from then on you do have marc essentially strengthening this narrative within valentino's mind. that's where we make the step to self-delusion, right...

that being said - the childhood hero thing. "is it true that he’s been my fan? is it true that he had a poster with me in his bedroom? I would like to check." now, in all honesty, I do think valentino knows marc was a fan. this is just my personal read, but to me that line was meant to twist the knife in, rather than being completely literal. the contentious bit, right, isn't that marc at one stage was a valentino fan, it's what this means. what valentino is asserting here is that this stance of marc's, where marc still claims a particular fondness for valentino as a result of how he's always been a fan of valentino, is fundamentally dishonest. valentino knows for a fact that just having a poster of someone in their room isn't enough to stop a rivalry from eventually going sour. let's bring in another autobiography excerpt:

The funny thing is that a few years earlier, when I was fourteen I had had a poster of Biaggi in my room. It was one of many posters on my bedroom wall and it showed Biaggi on the Honda 250. Nothing strange in that: he was Italian and I supported all the Italian riders. Besides, he was an aggressive rider and I always had a lot of respect for those riders who went on the attack. But, back then, I did not know him personally. It was only when I started to listen to his interviews and read what he said in the papers that my opinion changed. With Biaggi, no matter what happened, it never seemed to be his fault, there was always something wrong with the bike or the tyres. I thought he said a lot of things that I believed simply couldn't be true.

the thing is, almost all of these riders are going to have someone on their bedroom wall - and if you're marc's age, there's a pretty good chance that someone is going to be valentino rossi. it's not even valentino's first experience with a feud starting up with someone who had once been his fan... look at casey, who repeatedly said he was a fan of his, had admired him - yes, obviously, completely different degree to marc, but the point is he still publicly said it before that rivalry turned ugly. and jorge who was both a valentino anti-fan and a fan and was kinda actively weird about the whole thing. valentino made reference to this himself in 2010 when those two and him started sniping at each other when he was out with the leg break, saying that at least they were being honest now. like... in blunt terms, if you're valentino rossi, you do kinda expect most people to be a fan of you. so many of these younger riders have some childhood photo of themselves with valentino floating around. marc wasn't particularly special in that regard. the fact that he was a valentino fan isn't why valentino felt so warmly towards him. it wouldn't have been enough in itself for valentino to treat him in any way differently from his other rivals. valentino's been in this game for too long to get sentimental over that - at the end of the day, you need to ensure you're thinking about your rivals in whatever way you need to in order to give yourself the best possible chance to win. the posters weren't the reason why valentino lowered his guard around marc. so, keeping all that in mind, would it really be thar=t hard for valentino to believe that marc was at one stage a fan of his? seriously?

there's also this from uccio in that infamous 2016 interview:

if even uccio implicitly acknowledges the poster bit isn't fake, is valentino really not going to believe that marc had a poster of him at some stage?

now, this isn't the same thing as arguing that valentino had an accurate understanding of how marc felt towards him. it's entirely plausible to say that, yes, he wasn't being entirely literal about the childhood bedroom stuff... but he also didn't get what that hero worship actually meant to marc. you can be a fan of someone and you can be A Fan, and marc was A Fan. this wasn't just a reference point for marc... this was someone he deeply admired. someone he very much idolised. it's not just 'a poster', right - showing valentino marc's childhood bedroom probably doesn't achieve that much. it's something that valentino just interprets differently... to him, this doesn't mean anything in and of itself. which he's broadly right about - except he wasn't entirely aware of what level of fandom marc was actually operating on

so, why does he say it if he's not literally doubting the existence of any posters? first of all, he's just trying to be cruel here. he knows why it stings, right - he's calling the very foundation of their relationship a lie. marc had this pretence up the whole time, and now valentino is finally forcing him to drop it. marc's being dishonest - and how better to argue his case than by saying not even the posters were real? the second reason is that it's an act of erasure. I talk in the sete post about how he does this with that rivalry... most noticeably by excluding sete almost entirely from his autobiography. here, valentino takes a slightly different approach over the years, but as the other feud with deep interpersonal repercussions it's broadly coming from the same playbook. this is the most radical way you can cut ties, right... you can argue the bond never existed in the first place. if it was all just a lie, then the relationship isn't just over - it was never really there. it's the most brutal and complete way you can burn your bridges. marc isn't just denied valentino's friendship... valentino isn't even allowing him to be his fan. he's attempting to erase the continuity between them entirely, how marc isn't just his successor in literal terms of his results but also in the more abstract sense of how he modelled himself after valentino. it's this bit that indicates the finality in valentino's decision perhaps better than anything else. this is the end, in all the ways that matter most

[lee-hakhyun]

from an outside perspective it’s really feeling like they’re emphasising kim dokja’s status as an eldritch god. like,,, you don’t feel it through orv because kim dokja himself has just enough knowledge from reading twsa to navigate, and on his own you can really tell how human he actually is, but. take things from a distanced perspective, and suddenly. suddenly, it’s azathoth and the outer gods of lovecraftian lore, played completely straight. i’ve heard enough people compare azathoth and kdj that i think i can say this much

you wanna know something i’ve thought about a lot regarding kdj and the oldest dream? about yjh becoming a terrorist, and how kimcom willingly went back into the fray, how they returned to the previous timeline - and how some people couldn’t comprehend their choices at first? it makes me think of that old trope of ‘going mad from the revelation’, how some people say that gazing upon this otherworldly being’s true form or ‘learning the truth of the world’ would surely make someone go mad.

go mad with what, though? insanity? or grief? because so, so often, one’s pain is incomprehensible to outsiders, and fail to understand how or why you lash out or break down. it’s a depressing pattern in real life, too. kdj goes mad with grief and self-hatred, learning the truth; kimcom take on the insane route of going through the apocalypse again just to reach the end; yjh is unable to heal, to cope with a world without the scenarios and without his companion to bear through it, and so he fights over the replica of the arc. from an outsider’s perspective, without the understanding that the people involved are all brokenhearted over truths only they know, it might come off as insanity. but it’s all just grief.

with that said, however, to have someone jung heewon KNEW, cruel as he was, replaced by someone from a world beyond - and to start singing the praise of someone else’s name? to say ‘i need to find them?’ how all of them look to one name that outsiders simply DO NOT KNOW, to hail this unknown person as important, as an idol, as… as a god…

the 41st turn before their version of shin yoosung travelled to the other worldlines is a forgotten story, and by orv logic forgotten stories are outer gods. in lovecraftian lore, the outer gods sought to wake the blind idiot god azathoth, who in orv is represented by kdj dreaming for ‘eternity’. also, the Outer Gods of orv (the one actually being called as such right now) see the side story - which is the ‘forgotten’ 41st turn, now being written in where once it was not - as their chance to finally be written on the wall. so it’s. it’s. this is just singshong taking their lovecraftian elements to their logical extreme

interestingly, however, kdj isn’t the only reader anymore, is he? orv places a lot of emphasis on communication and writing on the wall, but in the side story it could perhaps be interpreted as ‘trying to be read by one person in particular’. and then the readers that die are labelled as ‘kdj33’ or ‘kdj47’, reducing them to being ‘just a part’, but… they’re all different people. they’re all people who took in kdj’s story, thus his story becomes a part of their own - but only a part. i’ve said that before, but.

well, you can’t force your own narrative on to someone else.

han sooyoung tried that, actually, didn’t she? tried to get kdj back through ending the story early only to realize the hurt she was causing and backing off. you can’t always reach people in the way you want. that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop trying, but there’s also a point where you need to recede, to compromise. am i making sense? i have no idea where singnshong is taking this story, but i’m looking at hsy with lee hakhyun and ceokdj with the readers turned kdj fragments and the outer gods wanting their story written on the wall and. i feel like i’m starting to see a pattern. i could also be hallucinating, but i could also not be. i offer this for your consideration

okay i put this aside for a bit but yes. oh my god. eldritch kdj.. i had not heard about this before, but that's so interesting thinking about it through that lens. and in the side story, hsy forcing the memories of orv on jhw to try to break her.. the explict mentioning of han sooyoung being seen as a 'god' in that moment...

--

fun fact, if you don't remember! lovecraftian horrors are also mentioned as outer gods in orv

chapter 179. when talking with the devourer of dreams, kdj mentioned these modifiers

the fear of sarnath - bokrug

horror from the hills - chaugnar faugn

master of r'lyeh - cthulhu

--

now, adding my own thoughts - the pattern is identity. stories.

there's something wrong with everything in this turn.

the kkomas were cute. until it was revealed that they were dead readers. though.. is that not also kind of what the yoo joonghyuk kkomas are? they may have all been yoo joonghyuk, but their lives in that turn were their own. <- however. the difference here is that while the yjh kkomas were all 'yoo joonghyuk' these kdj kkomas were NOT. they all had their own lives before being brought to wos, and upon being killed and placed in the theater.. they lost themselves.. which is terrifying to think about. you die, and you're brought back to watch your companions go on without you, but you're not yourself anymore. you're kim dokja, who wants to continue watching the stories on the screen.

the transmigrated readers. until the latest chapters, we hadn't been shown the real effect of the readers possessing characters in this world (honestly, we were led to believe that most people transmigrated into 'extras' without their own story. but that's not true, is it?). cheon inho has no one close to him as far as we know (lol), but that's not the same for others. what about the people who knew the possessed characters? lee hakhyun realizes this in the latest chapter, that maybe him and the readers coming here were an additional disaster for the people that lived here.

lee hakhyun's problems,, he's constantly going back and forth on 'lee hakhyun' and 'cheon inho', and there's clearly something wrong with the way he sees himself... we know more about him that he does currently, and if he does find out. i don't think things are going to end well.

and of course. everything about kim dokja. his name is in everyone's minds, the readers are desperate for a source of hope and he has become that to them. kim dokja is being idolized. even before the scenarios, there were those using kim dokja's story in the same way he used yjh. it's not framed as a negative, if that's what you need to do survive, then you should always do what you can to survive, no matter what. but even when you borrow stories, you need to stay yourself. you are your own person.

there's a clear connection with all of these, and it's identity. who someone is, the way they're seen, their stories. what makes you yourself? stories make up who you are, and these outer gods want their own stories written down on the wall to define themselves. rep kdj wanting the readers to forge a new story, lee hakhyun discovering stories that were never told in orv.

right now, nobody's happy. time is running out for the outer gods, the readers have unwittingly destroyed others by taking over these 'extras', kimcom are still desperately searching for their star, our dear protagonist is continuing to doubt himself. and kim dokja is still watching.

...this is orv. not everyone will get their happy ending. their goals oppose each other. we can hope for the best, but that isn't going to happen.

[danielnelsen]

so if you romance and ascend astarion you can kick him in the balls when he tries to turn you and it’s just very funny, he’s so pissy about it. so much for the most powerful vampire of all time or whatever, he stamps around like a toddler and then leaves forever